Quadruple Helix DNA Discovered in Human Cells
According to scientists from Cambridge University, they have discovered a quadruple helix DNA at work in human cells for the very first time. It is more familiar to everyone as a double helix.
The researchers said that control of the four-stranded G-quadruplex nucleic acid structures could provide ways to fight diseases, such as cancer.
The study was published in Nature Chemistry Journal.
Title: Quantitative visualization of DNA G-quadruplex structures in human cells
Giulia Biffi, David Tannahill, John McCafferty, & Shankar Balasubramanian
Nature Chemistry (2013) doi:10.1038/nchem.1548
Abstract
Four-stranded G-quadruplex nucleic acid structures are of great interest as their high thermodynamic stability under near-physiological conditions suggests that they could form in cells. Here we report the generation and application of an engineered, structure-specific antibody employed to quantitatively visualize DNA G-quadruplex structures in human cells. We show explicitly that G-quadruplex formation in DNA is modulated during cell-cycle progression and that endogenous G-quadruplex DNA structures can be stabilized by a small-molecule ligand. Together these findings provide substantive evidence for the formation of G-quadruplex structures in the genome of mammalian cells and corroborate the application of stabilizing ligands in a cellular context to target G-quadruplexes and intervene with their function.
The full paper can be accessed via Nature Chemistry.